Justice? What justice?

Last Updated: Saturday 04 July 2015

THE Supreme Court has been passing quite a few orders on
environmental cases of late. It is, in fact, now common for
journalists to somewhat affectionately refer to -one particular
judge as the 'green judge', the largest number of judgments
having been passed by him. So, environment is clearly on the
judiciary's agenda and today, partly because of this, there has
been a jump in environmental awareness. This has been
definitely partly boosted awareness, once the people saw that
someone is willing to act.

But by the same logic, the sc faces the danger, of seeing this
growing popularity turn into anger. and frustration. Some
recent developments have raised major doubts., Take, for
instance, the orders on the removal of catalytic converters
from new cars, or the measures suggested for the protection of.
the historic Taj Mahal, and lastly, the very sad decision on the
closure of five polluting units in Bkhhdi village of Rajasthan's
Udaipur district.

ILast fortnight, the sc ruled that removal of catalytic converters from cars should be treated as an offence and the
appropriate authorities,must deal with the offenders according to the provisions of law. First of all, the court has acted on
a petition filed by someone who has reacted
to press reports on the widespread removal
of the converters. However, there is no concrete evidence that this is indeed happening.
In fact, statistical 'records show that the
demand almost clearly matches the supply.
Thus, has the Court ruled oh a practice
which is seemingly not there?

Secondly, there is no law to deal with
this, as experts in the 'appropriate authority'
opine. The laws we allow the road transport
authority to deal with manufacturers only.
But in this instance the offenders are the carowners. The sc, of course, has stated that if
required, proper laws or rules should be
framed. Till then, what is the value of the
judgment? And then, the order makes car-owners took like
environmentalvillains. But it is only because getting unleaded
petro.1 is such a pain (only 226 petrol pumps in the whole
country, till January 1996, as the Court itself notes, sell unleaded petrol), that the practice has grown, if at an. For us, there7
fore, what would be more appropriate is that the judiciary
should tell the- bureaucracy to arrange for infrastructure
before expecting citizens to stick to environmental measures.
Without that, the government's project on catalytic converters
remain a mere populist measure.

The court has also recently issued several orders on maintaining the hgalth of the Taj. It would be inappropriate to go
into great details right now, but it is important to mention that
the report by the National Environmental Engineering
Resear@h institute (NEEPJ), the basis on which the court is taking, action, has been rubbished by many exTerts, and Down To
EartYs own analysis shows. that there are too many questions
which the NEERI mandarins themselves have no answers to
/but, all the same, they have gone ahead and filed the report.
What is the basis on which the Court accepts the rep .orts of
NEERi as correct? How can NEERI reports be objective, when it
depends directly on funding from the people who want a
report done? NEERI is not an independent authority, and has
been found to have given biased opinion in several cases, Will
the court then reconsider the orders in this case, ask for an
expert review of the NEERI'report and then, re-evaluate the
whole thing?

Lastly, we must say with a deep sense of regret that the
order in the Bichhdi case is shocking. The court has ordered
five units to be closed because they have been finally found to
be dangerously polluting. But the surprising fact is that these
units have been closed for the last five years due to mass action
by the villagers. So what is the Court closing now? The owner
has shifted out. The land remains as polluted, the aquifer is, receiving fresh inputs of
poisonous water every time the rains wash
down more of the carcinogenic sludge into it,
and the people still await compensation.

When CSE spoke to some of the people
involved in the Bichhdi case after the court
order, they said the villagers were under the
impression that the sc had ordered compensation. In fact, there is no such order-All that
the sc says, inter alia, is that if they want
compensation, they can approach local
courts.

There are many other aspects to the
Bichhdi case'(for instance, the fact that the
owner of theclosed units has moved and set
up shop elsewhere, happily ruining the environment there).
But this is the most serious aspect: the people have been looking at the, sc for justice, for making provisions for, drinking
water, for compensation, only to be told that-it has nothing to
say on providing safe drinking water, and if the villagers want
justice,, they have to apply for it once again.

Wha t, will they now say,, when they hear the truth, staring
at the polluted water in their wells, which is the colour of dark@
strong coffee or a cola drink? What will the women, who walk
miles each day to get some safe water, now say? Can the court
blame the people, if one day they just turn around and say:
"Justice? Huh!"

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